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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday announced an 18-member squad for the five-match T20I series against West Indies. While most of the players from the England tour retained their places, there were a few names missing from the list. Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Yuzvendra Chahal are the players who missed out on being named to the 18-member squad.
As per the information available, the three big names have been ‘rested’ from the West Indies tour. While no one questioned the exclusion of Jasprit Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal, many questions were raised about Virat Kohli being rested. It became a topic of discussion in no time and many former cricketers shared their views.
Former India pacer RP Singh also talked about Kohli getting excluded and said that when a player goes through a slump, he should not ask for rest but rather should work his way up by playing as many games as possible. Singh also questioned the concept of resting players and opined that this luxury is available to only a few players. Singh also pointed out that no one asked players to take rest during his playing days.
"When a player is going through a bad patch, he won't ask for rest. He should play more games as taking rest won't help him return to form. The graph that has gone down will be up again only when you play regular matches. The luxury of taking rest isn't available for every player. When Pragyan (Ojha) and I were a part of the Indian team, there was no such thing as rest. No one asked if we wanted to rest... you either got selected or dropped," he told Cricbuzz.
"Even senior players didn't take rest before the T20 World Cup 2007 and that was because the format was new. A cricketer's playing days are limited and he eventually has to retire. Only if Virat has a niggle, then it's a right decision,” he added.